Spring 2013 Anime Preview

We’re back again! This post is probably going to be slightly late as we’re all getting really busy! But that aside, there is a larger amount of sci fi anime coming out in the spring. As much as I wanted it to happen, the selection isn’t exactly impressive. Although I do think age and real life is taking its toll on me, I still do hope to see anime reach a new golden age. So far as it stands, I’m having more fun rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Late and totally not my fault.. maybe… Regardless of my busy schedule or lazy lack of care towards anime that haven’t done much to inspire confidence of late I guess I am sorry for causing the post to be late. All that said this season is the very least better than the previous by a noticeable margin. While we have yet to truly break free of the moe slice of life and romance comedy variations there are at least more options to choose from this season. It is very nice to see an increase in science fiction, although to be honest most of them are pretty bad there is hope that with enough series being thrown out there will be some good shows mixed in eventually.

Adapted from a light novel, this anime heavily reminds me of The World God Only Knows as it involves a young man saving the world by capturing the hearts of young girls. Sure we have all this terminology like space quakes, and such, but overall we’re left with a harem anime. Cute girls and flashy special attacks, but I think I’ll most likely be turned off if the protagonist turns out to be of a generic cookie cutter build.

World ending importance placed on children’s romantic relationships, a truly brilliant and original idea for a story. In the end as Wanko already said this is hardly anything new but as far as attempts go to combine themes go it is a pretty terrible attempt. Throwing money at animators and composers to use a randomly chosen light novel as a basis does not make for a memorable anime.

So our main protagonist here has a hair cutting fetish, which eventually leads him to a young girl he must save from a “murder game”. It’s really hard to say given the description, but hey at least his scissors has a neat name, “dansai bunri no crime edge”. With the genre tags stating that it’s also within the action category, I guess we’ll be seeing some scissor action. It’s starting to remind me a bit of To Aru Majutsu no Index, but at least we’ll see both this crime edge and the imagine breaker this season.

Almost like they are trying to bank on the appeal an oddity generates with the protagonist and his hairy loli. I was never a fan of the murder game type of stories as the setup is there to forcibly give everyone a reason to kill each other which honestly is unnecessary with a well written story. Writing more sensible motivation may take a little more effort than coming up with some game or closed circle or anything along those lines where the actions are built into the setting instead of characters but when that extra few hours of thinking and effort applied to write it in well are invested the results are more than worth it.

Going from Maoyuu to Hataraku Maou-sama feels like switching from Pepsi to Diet Pepsi. At least for a romance comedy, it’ll be more interesting than the generic crap that usually comes out.

Not a whole lot of purpose to the point of the demon lord theme aside from using it as a means to generate “Unique” yet recognizable character archetypes for a romance comedy. Otherwise there is very little here worth noting as anything beyond standard fodder for the genre.

I already have bad thoughts about this anime as I see the main protagonist there fooling around in that picture. Not much information except for the overall premise of harvesting resources from space, but mecha anime recently have either been hit or miss. After watching AquarionEvol, I have lost faith in the new giant robot anime. I don’t think this will be the anime to bring back my love for it either.

While I enjoy a good sci-fi mecha or not there is a definite trend in the last ten or so years away from the series like the older Gundams, Evangelion, and even Full Metal Panic that defined what a good mecha could be compared to the likes of the Power Rangers. Continuing with the modern trend of poorly made mecha this season does not disappoint anyone into that sort of thing delivering this particular gem of modern day under achievement.

Anti-social guy as the protagonist hrmm… no problem! In the world of anime, you’re guaranteed a harem! I’m pretty sure he’ll capture those two above, and will probably add 2-3 more before the series end. 2D makes everything so easy.

It seems like the majority of anime today has come down to how best to mix up the standard romance comedy by adding some theme to the same exact type of characters. Fitting into this style perfectly we have anti social protagonist meets school beauty via being forced into club interaction.

The Shin Megami Tensei games have always been a great demon fighting RPG series, and with how Persona 4 did as an anime, I do think that this will work out decently. I personally haven’t tried out Devil Survivor 2, but I did play the first one. Although the story in the first game wasn’t really anything you would proudly tell anyone about, it was still a fun overall experience. As I have said earlier, I do think that this anime has a chance of turning out decently, but I wouldn’t place any higher hopes beyond that. So don’t expect a 9/10 anime, because you’ll be disappointed :3

This series always felt a little off to me so I was never all that interested. Maybe had they put some extra effort into sculpting the setting to be less chuuni maybe there would be something worth it here.

Last season I was asking for something more serious, but nothing along these lines. I don’t think I want to spend anytime seeing a boy face his psychological issues as he has to deal with blackmail, love, and his own sins. But I do commend the fact that they’re airing something that’s out of the norm, and maybe I’ll give it a shot. But most likely, this may be too dark for me.

Rather than a well written piece about the darker side of human emotions this series feels almost like an attempt to be edgy in a dark way by pushing the bounds in order to provoke a reaction from the audience. Whether right or wrong series based on characters making poor decisions never sat well with me.

The only thing I really enjoyed seeing here was the genderbent versions of loli Sanada Yukimura and twintail Kanetsugu Naoe. If you guys are into fanservice and genderbent versions of historical figures, then go right ahead. I’m fine with seeing occasional screenshots :3

I found watching the paint drops more entertaining than the show itself, which says a lot about how bad I felt this was. Silly harem gender swap series pretty much sums this one up.

Sometimes when a season is so bad, this becomes more appealing. Cute dragon girls fighting to defend their world from evil invaders may not seem like much, until they’re voiced by Kirino, Kuroneko, and Ayase! In the end this may fill up my Dog Days slot.

If one were to find some way to distill the very essence of whatever vile concoction has corrupted and plagued the anime industry this series would be the purified extract. Now that Strike Witches is gone it seems every attempt has been made to repeat an atrocity that should have been banned by international convention as a crime against intelligence.

Speaking of Kirino, I honestly have no idea how this season is supposed to go after the events of the first season. The appeal of this series may have already worn off on me though, so I don’t think I’ll be covering it. Hopefully Micchi-senpai will offer some words!

Yeah… no. This series was amusing for a whole of five minutes as someone who reads a lot of eroge, beyond that it is pretty much moemoe weeaboo fodder.

If it’s anything like the first season, I’m going to enjoy seeing these cute chibi demons wreak havoc on the mortal world again. Despite their cute image, this show is definitely targeting an older audience, and its crude humor is something you need when every other series out there that you’re watching is full of fluffy and frilly goodness.

Finally a series I actually enjoyed. The violent humor with the demons coupled with the personalities of the humans made for a simple but enjoyable show. Simple physical humor coupled with the silly antics of the entire cast means that even though there is little to no real story to speak of the episodes were fun to watch without taking itself too seriously.

I sort of enjoyed Seto no Hanayome, but just looking at this picture I grabbed for this series, I don’t think this will be as enjoyable. The lack of scanlations for the 8 volumes that are out also makes it a bit worrisome. But really, who knows how entertaining a drunk crazy mermaid can be? >_O;

I’ve read a bit of this series and well, if you’ve seen the first episode of Muvluv: Total Eclipse, it should give you an idea of how this series somewhat pans out. The titans are overwhelmingly strong, and our main characters are constantly risking their lives to fight against these giants who end up eating you while sporting their best troll faces. Full of despair and tragedy, this is one of the more darker series in this season. Dark in the sense is that the lives of characters get snuffed out faster than I can go to the bathroom.

I have read some of this series as well and must say while it has some things I think the editing staff should have modified to increase the appeal the general idea and presentation is not a bad one. Unusual in the visceral nature of the series I am quite surprised to see it turned into an anime. Perhaps if the production teams do not chicken out and turn down the violence this series may be at least partially a return to the anime style of the 80s and 90s before the kiddie gloves were strapped over the entire medium. Much of the success or failure will however depend on the story itself, something I have not read enough of to be confident in despite feeling surprisingly hopeful about the series in general. The resolution of the story in particular is going to define how the entire series works out, both with how the giants are explained and worked into the setting and the progress to the conclusion of the characters involvement. In other words depending on how the person watching feels about the very few characters worth growing attached to by the end and in response to the end will seal the fate of this series for good or ill.

Despite watching a lot of the older stuff, I never actually checked out the original series of this. Quite interesting that they went a special route with this, by having the anime released as a series of movies before the official broadcast. So technically, if you were a die hard fan of this, you would have probably watched the whole series in theaters before the television viewers. According to a random reviews I’ve read, the reception is positive and it’s likened to a Battlestar Galactica. Well, this should wash off the horror of watching high school girls playing as space pirates~

While I typically find older series much better than anything we have nowadays, I have always felt certain stylistic aspects can make these older shows more difficult to accept. One such example both Yamato and Captain Harlock are guilty of is how their spaceships so closely resemble actual sea-going ships. This along with rather simplified technology in general always made me feel as though these series were closer to children playing in cardboard boxes with plastic toy guns than any kind of actual scenario being played out in the chosen setting. That said I will have to dig up the older series before I touch anything new, not understanding the background makes it much more difficult to understand what is good or bad about the series itself, or if it’s just some new age director or writer trying to alter a classic to suit their tastes.

I always wondered where this certain art style came from since I’ve seen this parodied a lot. Although the original classic is a shoujo manga, I want to see how this new version will turn out. From a battle for a fabled movie role to now the position of gang leader, I don’t know what the author is thinking xD; Then again I would see this for the art alone… I’ve seen it parodied too much, that I’ve taken interest in it!

I… don’t even know what to say about this one, guess it is one of those I need to watch to actually form any kind of actual opinion on.

I do wonder how Psycho Pass is turning out as I’m looking up information on this Gargantia anime. Urobuchi Gen is handling the script here, so it’ll be interesting to see how this does. Fate Zero has shown us his potential, and he did do a great job on creating something special with Madoka Magica… but with what little I’ve seen of Psycho Pass, I’ve grown a bit cautious. However, I am pretty glad that there’s a lot more science fiction anime out this season.

Involvement of certain immensely overrated people aside, I can’t see a whole lot of appeal here. It feels almost like they came up with this after watching Full Metal Panic and decide to take those ideas and reform them just enough to look original to the kids nowadays who have never seen or heard of that series. Add in some attempts at appearing edgy to the easily fooled and misguided viewers rushing to praise anything stamped with the names of those everyone else told them are genius content creators lauded enough by said groupies they could paint their name on the Rosetta stone itself and claim it was their unique work without being doubted as a revolutionary mind for a second.

I could use another season of Full Metal PanicFumoffu :3

I think everyone could use another season of Fumoffu, or even another season of the actual show provided it doesn’t follow the lame emo fest that was the second season.

An action anime that looks as stupid as its premise… There is something wrong when Kenshin, Samurai Champloo, and Samurai Deeper Kyo are the only anime I can recall from this genre.

A story about the adventures of the Edo era Orkin man. Just like the commercials imply he is passionate about pest control, truly an inspirational story for those looking to go into the pest control trade.

I didn’t know that Watase Yuu did shounen work, as I’m only familiar with her Fushigi Yugi series, which I watched long ago before I knew what the shoujo genre was. So with magic, fantasy, different worlds, and perhaps the lack of the sausage fest, we have a Fushigi Yugi catered to the male audience. However, the mention of a pathetic protagonist in a review lowers the chance of me actually watching an episode. Come on, we need more of you hagure yuusha types!

Pretty standard concept though I have no faith in shoujo authors or weak minded protagonists so I think I’ll end up saying pass.

We had assassins going to school in one season, and now we’ll be dealing with them handling a business hotel. With the emphasis on the main protagonist’s big breasts’, I’m not sure if the level of comedy they’re going to offer will appeal to me. I just hope it won’t be full of repetitive breast jokes.

Another pull random themes and character traits out of a hat then make a series out of it show.

And another slice of life after that previous one! At least this one looks cute, I’ll give it that. That alone makes it more watchable!

And so Wanko implies that all it takes are K on look alikes to get him to rate something higher. Even failing to watch the show it would seem “Hook line and sinker” do not apply only to Micchi.

I am but a weak wanko that must occasionally give in to the visual delicacies of life. Slice of life shows may be falling out of favor with me but I can’t deny the cute character designs ;_; And well, although I did say this was more watchable than the previous show, it’s more like saying I prefer soju over sake. I might find sake more tolerable, but I feel like I’m drinking poison either way :3

*Cough* Is that so… “Azunyan”?

I feel so much shame using that as my summoner name >_< But Azunyan carries no sin! Leave those cute twintails be!

She carries the sin of corrupting anime even more than it was before. K on and all its characters are a blight upon animation. Not only was the story bad but they used being “Cute” as a reason to cut costs on the animation itself.

Lacking a lot of details on this, but an original project from Sunrise now elicits a disappointed response from me. After Code Geass R2 and Gundam Age, I just lost all hope. Sorry Kururugi Suzaku, I won’t be watching you and those white knights in action.

Why do mecha series these days revolve around a single unique robot with world ending power and significance being found by some random nobody. Granted some older series have a similar method to bringing the protagonist into a war with mechs, but in most of those the mechs already existed. Older gundam series such as Zeta were similar but subtly different to a show like this. Would it be so hard to throw 3-4 years onto the protagonists age, put him into a military already using mechs to fight to start with? Maybe after proving himself or even some random series of events like they usually seem fond of he can end up with some prototype mech instead. However instead the genre prefers to rely on taking random teen caught in an invasion or some form of attack that ends up throwing them in the cockpit of some kind of power rangers gundam that single handedly ends all enemy resistance, please people for the sake of the genre grow up.

Thinking back of recent anime, I can’t recall one in the past 2-3 years where the giant super robot isn’t defeating enemies at the pace of a Dynasty Warriors game.

I was hoping for more Touma, but not in a spinoff. This sequel will focus on the Sisters/Accelerator arc that happened earlier in the series, so we’ll get more of a look at what happened on biribiri’s side. Although the first railgun series wasn’t that bad, it made me want for more Touma appearances. Can’t exactly outdo the main protagonist from the main series :3

I hate this series with a passion. Index itself wouldn’t be a bad series without ya know, Index around to screw everything up and annoy the crap out of everyone watching. The only thing I find more annoying and irksome than this spinoff series however are the fans it has spawned. I physically cringe and write off pretty much anyone who likes this as an ignorant weeaboo it is really that bad of a series.

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Do give Hataraku Maou-sama a chance if you’ve got the time. It’s real funny and nothing like the huge walking cliche the premise makes it sound like. Unless it goes downhill later, as I’ve only read two volumes of the LN.

It’s as if the team behind it were trying to live their dreams of working on live action dramas, and ended up creating this monstrosity. Rather than seeing it as art or even tasteful, it feels… lazy… The manga artist must be crying blood after seeing what they’ve done with his stuff.

YES RAILGUN HURR /ignorant weeaboo face/
No but I must admit the only reason I watch Railgun/Index is because of Mikoto. Just something about her character that I like.
( i think its cuz shes an overpowered female tsundere who isn’t ditzy and has boobs that don’t defy the laws of physics..and thats quite an accomplishment for an anime character) ;D